Tom Cruise settles defamation lawsuit against tabloid publisher

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Tom Cruise settles defamation lawsuit against tabloid publisher

LOS ANGELES (CNN) — Actor Tom Cruise has settled a $50 million defamation suit he filed last year against a tabloid publisher after it ran stories accusing him of having “abandoned” his daughter Suri during his divorce from her mother, actress Katie Holmes.

The lawsuit against Bauer Publishing, In Touch and Life & Style magazines “has been settled,” said Lindsay Ferraro, public relations director for both magazines, in an e-mail. “The terms of the settlement were not disclosed and remain confidential.”

Neither Bauer Publishing nor the magazines “intended to communicate that Tom Cruise had cut off all ties and abandoned his daughter, Suri, and regret if anyone drew that inference from anything they published,” she added.

A court document noted that the suit was dismissed Friday “with prejudice,” meaning that it cannot be refiled.

The one-paragraph settlement says the dismissal was agreed to by Cruise and the tabloid publisher and that each side was responsible for their own legal fees.

In a sworn affidavit filed last month in federal court, Cruise rejected as “patently false” the assertion that he had abandoned his daughter, now 7. “I have in no way cut Suri out of my life — whether physically, emotionally, financially or otherwise,” he said.

The publisher said then in a statement that both magazines “stand behind the reporting and articles at issue in Mr. Cruise’s action.”

The July 18, 2012, Life & Style cover carried the headline “SURI IN TEARS, ABANDONED BY HER DAD” along with a photo of the child. There was no accompanying text to explain the headline.

The complaint also pointed to an InTouch cover story from September 2012 headlined “44 DAYS WITHOUT TOM … ABANDONED BY DADDY … Suri is left heartbroken as Tom suddenly shuts her out and even misses her first day of school… HAS HE CHOSEN SCIENTOLOGY OVER SURI FOR GOOD?”

Cruise said his daughter often accompanied him during his travels around the world to make movies, which “allowed me to see my daughter while still fulfilling my obligations to my work, my colleagues, and the studios that hire me.”